Reliability Analysis of Concrete Members

PROCEDURES ARE PRESENTED FOR DETERMINING THE PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION OF THE SAFETY MARGIN AND RELATED QUANTITIES FOR SEVERAL TYPES OF REINFORCED CONCRETE MEMBERS. DATA WERE EXTRACTED FROM PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED TEST RESULTS, AND WERE SEPARATELY ANALYZED FOR EACH OF THREE COMMON STRUCTURAL TYPES: BEAMS WITHOUT COMPRESSIVE REINFORCEMENT, BEAMS WITH COMPRESSIVE REINFORCEMENT, AND TIED COLUMNS. THE METHOD OF INFERENCE USED WAS BASED ON CONCEPTS FROM DECISION THEORY, PROVIDING THE INFORMATION IN A MORE USEABLE FORM THAN THAT NORMALLY ENCOUNTERED. RESULTS PERMIT THE QUOTATION OF THE PROBABILITY OF FAILURE FOR ANY SPECIFIED LOADING NEAR ULTIMATE. /AUTHOR/